Research News
March 2025: Honours student Anya Akimoff receives Moira Irvine Archaeological Research Award
For the undergraduate research thesis Charting the Understudied Landscape: Isotopic Baselines for CAM Plants and Other Native Organisms in Peru’s Tierras Blancas Region, Anya Akimoff receives the Moira Irvine Fund to support isotope analysis on plants from the Ica Province of Peru.
February 2025: Dr. Lauren Pratt visits MARG to discuss statistical modeling in archaeology
Sharing her expertise in Akaike information criterion (AIC) and Information Theory (IT), Dr. Lauren Pratt delivers a insightful workshop on the power of modeling in archaeological research.
January 2025: Based on international discussions and collaboration MARG contributes to recent article on ethical use of isotopes in archaeological research
Discussions on the ethical implementation of isotope analyses in archaeological research.
October 2024: Publication of Mobile Pastoralist Households
Aleksa Alaica co-authors book chapter, Camelid Caravans of Middle Horizon Peru, in new edited volume on ancient pastoralism.
September 2024: Honours student Kendra Leishman receives Moira Irvine Archaeological Research Award
For the thesis project Climate, Culture and Cormorants: A Paleoclimatic Moche Animal Use Study Kendra Leishman was awarded Moira Irvine fund to support isotope analyses on cormorant remains from northern Peru.
August 2024: Sican Museum project team visits Reserva Ecologica Chaparri
As part of a weekend field trip, MARG team members working on analyzing faunal remains from the Sican Museum visited the Chaparri Ecological Reserve to explore the diversity of Peru’s north coast.
July 2024: MARG PI Aleksa Alaica Awarded Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) Grant
CFI John R. Evans Leaders Fund supports innovative research programs across Canadian institutions. Designed to attract and retain scholars for present and future research promise. This funding will support the Multispecies Archaeology Laboratory (MSAL) to investigate human and nonhuman lifeways across time.
June 2024: Multispecies Archaeology Project - Cocahuischo team visits Paracas
Coastal ecosystems hold tremendous biodiversity that were harnessed in a range of precolonial subsistence and exchange strategies. While the Late Nasca site of Cocahuischo is located inland evidence from past and recent excavations attest to coastal contact. We visited the town of Paracas to explore this distinct environment, where project members were able to see penguins!
May 2024: MARG presents at Association for Environmental Archaeology in Faro, Portugal
Can guinea pig isotopes reveals something about past people and their environments? What about their social relationships? In this talk, MARG members Aleksa Alaica and Luis Manuel Gonzalez present preliminary isotope results on guinea pig remains from Cocahuischo.
April 2024: Honours student Amy Thompson receives Moira Irvine Archaeological Research Award
For the undergraduate research thesis Isotopic Analysis on Faunal Remains from Holt Wood and Gleb Field, Wiltshire, England, Amy Thompson receives the Moira Irvine Fund to support isotope analysis on faunal remains from the Teffont Archaeological Project.
March 2024: Archaeology Day
Members of our team shared some of our research findings at this year’s Archaeology Day 2024: Place & Power at UBC’s Anthropology and Sociology Building.